Tom Dixon is the reason you buy copper-toned homewares, because he made them popular when he used the unlikely metal for light fittings, martini glasses and coffee plungers. His singular and design-defining works have spawned copies in living rooms around the world: think of his S chair (originally designed when he worked for Italian designer Cappellini), considered so iconic that it’s housed in the permanent collection of MoMa in New York. Yet Dixon himself is so modest that he flinches when one podcaster calls his office a “global brand headquarters,” saying “If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s overstating something.” He seems to not even be sure if the title ‘designer’ is the accurate description for what he does, even though he’s one of the few people in his position with a name that’s well known. “I started making things, and at one point people called me a designer,” he once said, simply.

That they did, and for good reason: these days, his design brand is sold in 90 countries and has hubs in cities that pride themselves on the aesthetic, including Milan, New York and Tokyo. Although many businesses closed shop in 2020, new Tom Dixon hubs opened in Beijing and Shanghai, while his marketing campaigns continued – 24 Hours in Paris coincided with the brand’s two new accessories collections (Swirl and Press) launched in the City of Lights in January, while 24 Hours in Copenhagen launched four (Puck, Mill, Fog and Swirl candles) in September. Not even a global pandemic could slow this man down: instead of lapsing into a Covid-induced inertia, he found joy in pondering greenhouses.

LEFT Swirl Dumbbell candle holder and vase RIGHT Puck Collection.

“The first three months when we were in proper lockdown in the UK, I spent the majority of time in an orchid greenhouse on the South Coast. That was interesting, because it was my first time in an agricultural environment rather than in a design one,” he says. “That in itself was fascinating to me; it wasn’t about design, but about watching things grow and nurturing things in a completely different way. As someone who’s always been a city dweller, the luxury of space in the countryside was actually a revelation in itself – to spend three months solid with that amount of light and space and air. It brought up lots of potential avenues and the perspective of looking at things through a different lens….it was a large amount of unscheduled time to look at things afresh.”

That, in turn, gave Dixon a full circle moment. “Obviously [the pandemic] has been an absolute abject disaster for so many people and specifically for business – we’ve got two restaurants and that’s been miserable, that stopped dead. But the amount of time you [normally] spend rushing around the world, then liberates a load of time which allows you to do things that you weren’t expecting to. A lot of people have found more within themselves, and others have been confronted with stuff they don’t like. People have been very lonely. For me, I liked the solitude because when I started, many years ago, I was making things very much on my own, for my own pleasure. That’s what I found again - the ability to do that and not be surrounded by half a dozen assistants and finance people and all the rest of it…I mean, it’s just doing things with your hands again. It’s what a lot of people have lost – through computers and supply chains and cheap food and all the rest of it. But this year, you’ve seen this explosion of people making things themselves again, whether it’s bread or something else. And that’s been very healthy for a lot of them. For me, that was probably the reason that I started designing, which I had forgotten – just the pure pleasure of making something with no plan and no brief – and no customer as well!”

Tom Dixon at Coal Office

It’s also been a reminder of his humbler beginnings. Born in Tunisia, Dixon spent his early years in Morocco and Egypt before his parents moved to England when he was four and a half. “We were moving around quite a lot; I struggle to remember much, apart from a locust storm, a camel and the desert. Anybody that’s moved around a lot as a kid often has a different kind of mentality from people who’ve stayed in one place, and just going from the tropics to grim and cold UK would have been a bit of a culture and climate shock. I can’t say I remember anything, apart from the temperature.”

After high school, Dixon began studying art, but a motorcycle crash cut that path short; he dropped out and never returned. “I really didn’t enjoy going to art school,” he says. “I just wanted to get out of there.” He originally landed on a vastly different road: performing as bass guitarist in disco band Funkapolitan, which looked set to hit the big time when a deal was signed and The Clash asked them to open for them in New York. But the deal fell through and The Clash gig only resulted in bottles being thrown by the punk audience at the band. With that, and a second motorcycle accident, his strumming arm was laid to rest. This turn of events might have felled someone else, but Dixon remains philosophical. “You know, sometimes you’re forced into a situation that you weren’t anticipating, and then you have to adapt. I think what seems to be disastrous at the time ends up being formative. That’s a good lesson in life, particularly right now with everything changing around us.”

But back then, he was left with only his work in the nightclub business – and certain skills, such as knowing how to weld. Soon he started creating objects for people – not only because they paid him, but because it was what he liked to do. It was a far cry from the structured approach of art school “where you’re criticised by your peers, you’re being told what to do and what not to be by your professors and you’ve got specific periods you have to be creative within,” he says. “What I did [instead] was pure pleasure, leading to a business. I was making things for fun, really.” But his maverick approach to welded salvage furniture led to working for Cappellini and by the late 90s, he had landed a job at Habitat as Creative Director.

Beat Led Fat Pendant Black

Beat Fat, Flat and Tall Pendants with Fat Dining Chair and Flash Table Circle.

It was a position viewed with some snobbery from the upper echelons of the design community; for Dixon, it was a fast-track course in every element of design. “The way I really learned about commerce and communication was with Habitat, which was middle market retail. It taught me about different angles; it was almost my university, because you really learn on the job, like an apprentice…People can be quite snubby about High Street, but for me the job was about encountering dozens of different countries with craftsmen and factories that I otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to get involved in and typologies that I would never have been asked to do, like clothes and textiles. The breadth of the experience was so fascinating – understanding how things are made and where they come from, but also who buys them.”

Not long before he launched his eponymous brand in 2002 – which has its headquarters in London, the Coal Office - he was awarded an OBE by the Queen for his services to British design and has become one of the industry’s most feted British designers. With residential apartment development Rondure House, he brought his talents to Australia, acting as creative director of the Kew building. “I like things to be site specific, so I didn’t want to do something like a British spaceship landing in Melbourne,” Dixon says of the brutalist apartments. “It’s always great to work with Australians because they’ve got a heightened enthusiasm for design. They’re hungry for the outside and it’s a place that’s still so fresh thinking; sometimes the British are burdened by history.”

Residence at Rondure House. Designed by Tom Dixon Design Research Studio and Cera Stribley architecture and interior design.

With an enviable career so far – and a desire to keep trying new things, Dixon remains self-effacing about his success. “It’s a cliché, but you need luck, don’t you? I’ve been super lucky.” He won’t even attribute his longevity to hard work, although he clearly works hard. “I’m super idle, but the beauty of design is you can be idle and think of ideas. The best ideas don’t come from really concentrating and stressing out – they come from unexpected thoughts or encounters. The beauty of the design world is that it’s so vague and fluffy but the reality is that it’s just about thinking of better ways of doing something. I try not to sweat the design thing so much. It’s not like I’m sitting down and desperately sketching every day. The business is really about spotting things and working on things. I guess I do work a lot, but not in conventional ways.” For example? “The Beat light came about because I had been teaching at the Royal College, and I was lazy. The British Council (correct) had asked me to go to India to work with street craftsmen, and I thought, I can’t do this! Instead, I sent my students to India, and they came back with some really, really bad things but they’d done proper research into metro worker techniques (the underlying proportions and techniques of traditional brass work used to create water vessels and cooking pots), and the people who make water pots.” Soon, the brass water pot was re-envisioned as a lamp.

But despite an illustrious past, Dixon doesn’t like to hover there. It’s difficult to think about what you would revisit if you had hindsight, and although it would be great to re-live some of them with more knowledge, honestly I’m more interested in what I can do next. I’d be happy to go back sometimes, but it’s more interesting to go forward.” Any regrets? “Oh my god, I’ve got a lot of regret, but I don’t want to dwell on them!”

Written by Rachelle Unreich

Press Collection.

Opal bar and lounge at Rondure House. Designed by Tom Dixon Design Research Studio and Cera Stribley architecture and interior design.